Oh, passerby, take a moment, will you? Stay, stay – I’ll give you a show, something to think about, a little glimpse at what might have been. I’d call it magic, but we don’t believe in that any more, do we? No, no, this is about something else, about the ingenuity of man. We have remade the world. We have subverted it.
Why don’t you come see?
Come, cast your eyes on Antiquity! Here is a bauble for Hero, the long-rumoured aeolipile! See how it spins! It is a heart to pump the wind; why, it is done through steam of course! A breath of air, a smear of water, and the wind moves the metal! A marvellous trinket, you’ll agree, but listen here – it was the first steam engine no less, and on the back of its descendants rest the foundations of our modern world.
Our trains, of course, are thrown forwards on piston-legs of steel and steam. Our clocks calculate the circumference of each second on brass weights, fused copper drawn from the deepest wells of the earth. Difference engines are enabling our engineers and mechanics to build ever more complex contraptions, and our dirigibles have taken to the sky; my friend, surely you can see that we are in a new age.
The old one was governed by the rural chains of feudalism – well, we are over with that now. Now we are making the world into images of ourselves, and we are welding the water and the fire together to do it. We are making engines of steam to rebel against the natural laws of the world and the limits of man. We are refusing to obey, we are rising like steam; yes, yes, don’t you see?
We are steam punks.
